The NRA "Enemies List"...how is it that I didn't make the cut?

[I]t was no surprise to learn over the weekend, via Josh Marshall, that the National Rifle Association has a little list of 497 people and organizations who are in some way, shape, or form anti-gun. It makes for hilarious reading, although it’s sort of frightening to think about the demented minds of the people who assembled it. The list consists of 141 organizations, 228 celebrities, 27 “national figures” who are somehow different from celebrities, 37 journalists, 41 corporations and/or corporate CEOs, and 23 media outlets, all of whom are out to pry that Bushmaster from your warm, live hands. Some of the organizations make perfect sense. The American Civil Liberties Union. Sure. The American Trauma Society. I have no idea what precisely they do, but okay, it stands to reason that if trauma is their racket, they’re probably not big on people amassing large numbers of automatic weapons. Women Strike for Peace. You don’t say!

Just when one might reasonably begin to suspect there’s NO WAY the NRA could sink any lower, become any less rational and reasonable, and/or bring The Crazy any harder…well, I need to stop making assumptions. It’s becoming clear that not only is the NRA in the thrall of a cabal of paranoid conspiracy theorists, they’ve also taken a page from the Nixon Administration and compiled their very own “enemies list.”. It takes a lot to render me speechless, but wow…just wow; that’s some first-class, USDA Grade A crazy right there, knowhutimean?? Yeah, I know; I have no idea why or toward what end, either.

What the list is supposed to represent or accomplish- besides embarrassing those responsible for it- is difficult to imagine. Instead of trying to use reason and logic to convince their adversaries of the correctness of their position, Keene and LaPierre have taken the low road, the route of least sanity. Taking their political tone-deafness and inhumanity to new and disturbing depths, they’ve cast the NRA as an organization devoid of compassion and respect for human life. It’s clear that the NRA’s brain trust (and I use that term loosely) is devoted to guns and the gun industry above any and all other considerations. Time was when the NRA stood for gun safety and sensible gun control. Now David Keene and Wayne LaPierre have turned the NRA into an obscenity, its one and only concern being their twisted desire to thwart any and all efforts at gun control.

The dubious utility of an enemies list aside, what really makes it even crazier are the people and organizations on the list. There’s simply no way to fathom any rhyme, reason, or unifying theme, much less any criteria for being put on the enemies list. Being on the list seems to have had no deleterious effect on anyone; it’s not like the Keene and LaPierre possess the cojones or ability to actually visit any consequences upon those they despise. Frankly, I’d think those on the list should take their inclusion as a badge of honor…and I’m rather bummed to have been left off the list. I’d be honored to be thought enough of a threat to be officially declared an enemy of the NRA.

Seriously, what’s a guy got to do in order to be included on the enemies list? I’d have thought that by now I would gave pissed off someone at the NRA bunker in Washington. After all, I’m a gun-grabbing Liberal who thinks the 2nd Amendment needs to go the way of the buffalo. Surely that makes me enough of a threat to the NRA to be considered an enemy?

Or perhaps you have to be nominated; anyone care to vouch for my evil, anti-American, Liberal gun-grabbing intent?